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Anthroperium
Humanitas, Civitas, Divinitas -- ''Motto of the Anthroperium for whole duration The '''Anthroperium' (SY 196 - 841) is the ruling socio-political entity of Earth (written as UPΘ during this period) arising from the ashes of the Consortium and governing Inner Sol System during the Twilight Era and on into the Second Trilogy Era. Historians generally acknowledge the Annunciation as the beginning of the age of the Anthroperium and the end of the Great Punic War as the beginning of it's undisputed rule. History Background In the wake of the destructive Solar War, all hope for a unified Inner Solar government was effectively extinguished. The carefully constructed Solar trade network had entirely collapsed, stranding Mercury, Venus, and Luna without necessary supplies. Earth's unified government collapsed into a variety of factions spurned only by the brutal strong-arm leadership of Marcus Cato Scaevola and Septimus Severus Gaiaus Quintus. The pair were able to consolidate power into a totalitarian regime that governed most of Earth's urban centers at the total cost of the other Consortium planets. They redefined Earth life as centered around geography rather than political or national affiliation. As Sol System entered the Twilight Era, the Main Belt and the Rim largely forgot the influence of Earth as emmigration and immigraton ceased for half a century. Scaevola and Quintus retained the Consortium's name and political philosophy for a semi-unified nation limited now only to one planet. Terran Humanism had severely declined as a religious philosophy due to it's association with the failed Consortium. With the death of Scaevola and Quintus, power in the Consortium passed to the World Congress and proved to be a weak and ineffective replacement for the central figureheads of the Consortium's last great speakers. Thus the central authorities of Earth crumbled and dissolved and with so many claimants in such a power vacuum, Earth largely existed as a collection of city states and general regions more than nations. Antharchos Hypervincijovus Epiphanes Beginnings Sometime about a century into the Twilight Era, a Greek citizen arose inwith a new and defining philosophy. He had spent many years wandering Earth in it's broken state, speaking to people, learning, and studying. He believed wholly that the central cause of humanity's cycle of self destruction was multiculturalism, and that with a single unified human culture, humanity could obtain it's rightful destiny. He was fascinated with the Consortium's seeming attempts at doing this and widely studied history, religion, and political philosophy. Himself a patron of the remaining Terran Humanist society in Greece, he gathered power around himself starting in Spring SY 196. Annunciation Spring Equinox, SY 196: At the Heliopolis in New Athens, Greece, he declared himself to be the incarnation of the perfect man, the human ideal, the Anthroperius Rex ''of Terran Humanism, and thus the rightful unifier and leader of all humankind. He poured wine for all who were present and they drank a solemn covenant that mankind would be united by the end of the century. Key to his claim was the idea that he had, by virtue of his incarnation, slain Jove, regarded in Terran Humanism as the Father of the Universe. As such, Antharchos was now worthy to be the rightful and divine ruler of the entire universe and was worthy of worship. His first believer, Scribonius Epiphanes, became his scribe and prophet. Those who first accepted Antharchos acted also as his messengers, and they were sent out from Greece to the great cities of the world. From the Heliopolis, Anthrarchos wrote and published many works. The first was the ''Un Divanum Humanum Genus, his treatise on mankind, destiny, fate, past, future, and present state of being. In it he argues for a single humanistic outlook of life that will fully unify all people to face the struggles of the universe. This text was widely distributed by his initial disciples from Paris, Rome, Berlin, New York, Sydney, Beijing, New Dehli, Moscow, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Johannesberg, and Cairo. From the Heliopolis at New Athens, a new socio-politico-religion was born. Word spread through Greece that a superman had arrived at the Heliopolis in apparent claim to the prayerful's petition. For the first time in decades, public interest stirred in something other than mere survival. Anthrarchos began regularly publishing Annunatio!, a newspaper from New Athens that praised humanity for it's elasticity and ability to cope. The paper celebrated every victory humanity has known including birthdays, weddings, engagements, and even deaths. Conquest Many of the records at this point devolve into shrouded myth and legend and little is known until he had subjugated virtually the entire world to himself. Some claim that Epiphanes' conquest of Earth was a thing of brute military strength. Others suggest that the world capitulated to his rule, welcoming him not as a conqueror but as a savior. It is likely that the truth is a mixture of the two, with many unknown factors contributing to Epiphanes' eventual rule. All records indicate, however the conquest began early in SY 204 '''with Europe being the first to fall. It is unclear where the personal ambitions of Epiphanes end and the legal founding of the Anthroperium began. It is probable that there was no such thing, the reality of the Anthroperium coming into being by the sheer force of Epiphanes' will. '''Divine Wrath About a decade into the war, Epiphanes' forces are able to gain control of long-dormant space based weapons orbiting around Earth. His finest technical advisers were enlisted to create a highly sophisticated and portable control system for this great network. At the consummation of the work, all involved were killed to hide the secret of this technology. Thus far having led the cause from behind, Epiphanes took to the battlefield itself with his new weapon. Terror was struck into the heart of all who dared opposed him as he threatened retribution from very Heaven itself at his beck and call. True to form, cities that dared opposed the new order were quickly leveled in a hail of kinetic ordinance, ion blasts, lasers, and nuclear salvos. To all it appeared as if the man truly were a god. With such power, the final swathes of the conquest of Earth ended in about SY 241, a nearly four decade long struggle. Estimated billions of lives were lost as Earth's population was reduced by a final estimate of about one fifth of what it was before the war. Purge The great cultural purge for which he gained permanent infamy in galactic history did not begin until he had set up his administrative capital at Heliopolis, Greece. It began with a great economic reform as whole regions of Earth became reorganized under different strictures of population. Where these reforms were not wholly embraced, they were met swiftly by the sword. Epiphanes' cult of personality quickly grew into a reign of terror, and he let many superstitious beliefs about himself grow up. He began to rule both by love and by fear, a mixture of both in every human of Earth. In many such places, such a purge of culture and redefinition of life was welcome. Epiphanes' conquest was seen as the final conquest of all history, the broken mores of the past that brought so much turbulence and suffering to Earth over so many millennia finally having been discarded in the favor of what they were told was absolute and unquestionable truth. To question Epiphanes' rule became a matter of insanity, not a matter of courting punishment but something akin to questioning the existence of something so fundamental as gravity or the round shape of Earth. Epiphanes' vision of one united human culture grew into a morbid intolerance for Old Earth cultures, religions, and ways of life. Few, if any, exceptions were made. Many nations were allowed a limited degree of self-autonomy to keep part of their traditional way of life, but only as Epiphanes felt that it served his needs. The purge would continue for the next five decades, the entire planet under the dominion of a single man for the first time in history. Books were burned, museums torn town, and populations eradicated - as well as anyone who dared to resist Epiphanes. Conquest II With Earth and her resources safely at his command, Epiphanes began to fight a two front war in SY 246. While he undertook the long task of reforming Earth, Epiphanes also turned in secret his gaze towards the other terrestrial planets. Few knew about the conquests of space as the efforts were undertaken in total secrecy. Epiphanes amassed an armada for himself using what was left of the Consortium's spacefaring resources and technical prowess. Luna fell in a matter of weeks, as the descendants of the self sustaining colony were unable to put up much more than a token lone resistance to all the resources of Earth. With Luna as a base, and through the vast efforts of many decades, he was able to reclaim Mercury and Venus for himself. The legendary solar power system of the old Consortium was never returned to it's former glory, it did serve as an excellent boost to the Anthroperium. Venus was claimed in name only, as it's resources were never harvested again. Luna was harvested continuously of it's H3. On Mars, the conquest of the Anthroperium was ground to a halt, as the inhabitants of the Red Planet put up a much more capable military resistance. They knew their planet and it's environs well from the centuries of life there, while it's surface was virtually unknown to the Anthroperian groundbounders. Unlike the other terrestrial planets besides Earth, it's infrastructure was large, well-established and maintained. Unwilling even to decimate the Martian life from high orbit, Epiphanes knew that his thick veil of secrecy concerning the extraplanetary conquest would never be broken, and instead blockaded the planet. From then on, the Anthroperium became an uneasily tolerated force throughout the rest of broken Sol System; for the first time in many years, trade on a large scale resumed. On Earth, what was left from the wake of the Purge was being rebuilt in Epiphanes' own image. Slowly but surely, he began to squeeze the life out of the Red Planet. The Fall of Mars About SY 270, Mars finally collapsed under the imposing weight of the Anthroperium. It's resources had been bled nearly dry, and many vital supplies that were shipped from the Main Belt and Rim intended for use on Mars instead were confiscated and sent directly to Earth. A Forceful Religion From here, Epiphanes' military ambitions ceased and he appeared to be satisfied with his accomplishments. He contented himself to be worshiped as a living god by the inhabitants of Earth. Instead, his motives became much more subtle as he launched a full missionary effort to convert as many of the inhabitants of Sol System as possible to their religion. He offered a glimpse of broken hope to a long-shattered Sol System: acknowledge Epiphanes as god, and you could return to live on Earth. Such a message was cautiously received first by some on Mars, having been struck by a case of Stockholm Syndrome from the blockade. Among the longtime adherents of Architecture, and more especially the devoted Faithful of the Rim, it was met with open hostility. It was not uncommon for the messengers of the Anthroperium to disappear entirely when entering such regions of Sol System, never to be heard from again. Peace? About 315 SY, the Great Purge was complete. Countless artefacts had been destroyed, records burned, memories erased, temples eradicated, and whole civilizations buried under a forgotten heap of ash. Epiphanes' struggle had realized his vision of a single, united Earth culture and people after more than a century of strife. Epiphanes himself was almost a hundred and fifty years old, his life largely extended by the finest available technology and research on Earth. Few, if any, surrounding Anthrarchos remembered the secret of his once-mortality, but all had become true believers that he had, indeed, become the embodiment of perfect man and true divinity. This man, after all, had done what every creed, faith, and cause of Old Earth had failed to do: brought unity and an end to strife, albeit at a high cost. The Law and the Arena Epiphanes delivered a great speech in Heliopolis from within the temple itself, broadcast worldwide and witnessed by nearly every human then in existence (even in the Main Belt and Rim where the transmission was later picked up, where it was met with great scorn and indignation). His speech culminated in the delivering of what he called "The Law", which in effect became the immediate basis for a new global legal system. They were recorded by Scribonius Epiphanes in the following form: # I am Anthrarchos Hypervincijovus Epiphanes, the perfect man, the gods-made-flesh, who united your world and brought peace from disorder. You therefore shall worship none but I. # You shall not make any likenesses of any of the deities, including myself, for these things are misleading and I have freed you from such ignorance. I am among you in the flesh, now, to be worshiped in the flesh. I am jealous, visiting my divine wrath upon any who transgress, but showing mercy and showering blessing unto the utmost for those who follow and do likewise. # You shall not take my great name for worthlessness, for the man who does so will be found guilty of blasphemy. # Remember the middle day of the week, and sanctify it. For on that day, I shall rest with all my people, and all my people shall rest with me, and we shall be of one accord and one mind. # Give honor to your ancestry, for you are mankind, mine own very kin and progeny; and there is nothing in the whole universe like unto mankind. # You shall not murder a fellow human being. # You shall not violate the marriage-oath of any of your wives or husbands. # You shall take nothing and call it your own, for the whole Earth and all that it is in it is mine, and it is I who give it to you freely; therefore give it freely one to another as I have given it to you freely. # You shall not accuse your fellow human of any of these blasphemies unless you have witnessed them with your own ears and eyes; to do so is a great blasphemy, and he shall surely be put to death. # You shall desire nothing you do not already possess; rather, you shall pray, and I, who know the desires of the heart of all men shall be gracious and merciful unto those whom are steadfast in prayer and worship and all of their duties unto their fellow men. # You shall be content all the days of your life with what you have. # You shall report all falsehood wherever you may find it, so that it may be purged and all humanity remains clean; in such a fashion, we shall put out the evil from among us. The Law replaced both local legal systems as well as the growing body of de-facto law within the regime that had acted previously as primary guiding principles. Under this new system, unbelief was regarded as the gravest and most heinous sin of all: a murderer might be absolved given proper penance, yet a person who does not believe in and worship Epiphanes with their entire being is a heretic and a blasphemer of the highest sort, a tratior to himself, to his race, and to his benevolent god-king. Such a being is worthy only of the worst sort of public punishment in the Arena for the mad public spectacle, both entertainment and a savage and brutal warning at once to any who might dare to tempt disbelief. At Roma, the great city was rebuilt to a vast, dreamy imagination never before seen. In accordance with the revelation of the new law, Epiphanes declared a total overhaul of the previous justice system: there was to be one punishment only for criminals, and that was death in Arena. The severity of the crime did not matter. To that effect, the great Arena was constructed atop the ruins of the ancient Colosseum, and Anthroperian criminals - whether they be rebels, social malcontents, murderers, or thieves. Only disbelief was regarded with more severity than other crimes, with disbelievers being strung high along the battlements of the Arena to die a long, slow death of exposure. Their remains were never taken down, giving the Arena a grim and sinister appearance over the years as it slowly filled with sun bleached bones, a savage-death crown proclaiming the ultimate destiny of all who dared to defy the God-Man. Quest With his vision largely achieved, Epiphanes largely retired to his great palaces of Heliopolis and removed his physical visage from the public eye. The day to day running of the Anthroperium was entrusted to an endless, winding series of true believers and loyalists from the very earliest days. Despite the lack of public knowledge, many certain records and great libraries of knowledge had been preserved for Epiphanes' own use. Their very existence was a carefully guarded secret and their contents forbidden to all but the god-man himself. These were stored deep under lock and key within Heliopolis. Epiphanes was not all knowing, and for the remainder of his life, a deep hunger and thirst would consume him. He searched his stores of information for ... something, for the next great key to continuing his conquest. He discovered the Vaults of Rome buried by Nova Roma, and kept them a very closely guarded secret. So long as the obstinate will of the Main Belt and Rim held out against his dominion, true total conquest was stalled. He, and Sol System at large, had learned from the first Solar War that such things cannot be achieved by force. And so Epiphanes brooded. He believed that he had found the next step when he uncovered definitive evidence of the existence of the Progress fleet. By this time, unbeknownst to him, the Fleet had long since arrived at Urantia and flourished itself into the Centaurian civilization. But before he could proceed any further, his bodily health began to slowly fail him. Unwilling to surrender himself to the clutches of mortality - for, despite all the modern miracles of technology, he could not hold on to a mortal frame forever - Anthrarchos Hypervincijovus Epiphanes searched for the key to never ending life. He gathered to himself and employed his greatest researchers and scientists, but alas, his own hubris would be undoing. In the end, he discovered so many incomplete links and broken systems of learning that he could not hope to recover the millennia of human learning that he had so callously destroyed. There were simply too many directions to go and not nearly enough time or resources to pursue them all. He did, however, dictate a supposed revelation from Hermes that would set the tone for the leadership of the rest of the regime's history. Epiphanes announced that the he had become so powerful that his body was breaking down and unable to hold him any further. He commanded his regime to find the most genetically perfect male and female that they possibly could. Searching far and wide, they found the most perfect Grecian couple that they could and were taken into the palace to perform their sacred duty, which Epiphanes ritually observed. Anthrarchos II According to the official cultus, Anthrarchos Hypervincijovus Epiphanes indeed discovered the secret to immortality by leaving his body at will and inhabiting another. By all realistic standards, this was not the case, and Epiphanes died at just over two hundred years old in SY 375. However, according to the official cultus, he was presented before the Anthroperium in the guise of his new body, a young child in early teenage years groomed from birth to believe what the cultus taught him: that he was, in fact, the very incarnation of Anthroperus Rex and the spirit of Epiphanes would pass into and unite with his upon the former's "ascension". He was also known to be reclusive, preferring to stay within the palace rather than walk among the populace. He participated in public state affairs only insofar as the cultus required him to. The cultus explained his behavior to the people by saying that he was working on a secret project that would ensure the future destiny and survival of Mankind for all time and eternity. Anthrarchos II ruled for approximately a century and the finest of Earth's medical technologies were used upon him to attempt to prolong his life. However, many of the experiments were met with failure despite the genetic excellence of his biological parents. Anthrarchos III Anthrarchos III was crowned immediately following the "reincarnation" of the spirit of Epiphanes at the age of fourteen. The ceremony, unlike that of Anthrarchos II, was bombastic, ceremonious, and was met with tremendous joy worldwide. By now, the Anthroperium had held sole despotic power on Earth for over two centuries and was well within the grasp of the cultus. Where Anthrarchos II was introverted and self-oriented, Anthrarchos III was much more directly involved with the affairs of the people. He spent large amounts of time outside of the palace, instead directly interacting with his people and traveling the Earth accompanied by nothing more than a small retinue. He was known to lecture brilliantly, and his lectures were continuously published as holy writ, furthering the grip of the Anthroperian religion. These lectures were said to be inspired by Hermes himself. He made it known that he took no pleasure in the shows of the Arena, preferring his people to keep themselves from falsehood rather than be made public spectacles. Famine and Reform In addition, he significantly altered regime policy. Believing wholly that control of the populace could be maintained by his own force of will and personality alone, he dismantled much of the Anthroperium military in a series of public events declaring "total unification for all mankind". These events were turned into annual holidays. Through the large amounts of resource funding freed up by the dismantling of the military, Anthrarchos III made leaps and bounds advancements in medical technologies, some of which came quite close to the singularity. During this time, a series of global famines began to rock the planet, along with a small but significant increase in the number of natural disasters. Anthrarchos III blamed this thoroughly on an apostate thread of disbelief among humankind, and demanded increased sacrifices and daily worship to satiate him that he might placate the gods. "The Final Perfecting of Humanity" The regime's research made several key breakthroughs about thirty years into his reign. Coupled with the state-sponsored eugenics programs, he declared "the final perfecting of humanity" and sorted every person on the planet into one of three categories: homo indignus, homo sapiens, or homo primus. The first were possessors of significant mutations or traits declared unhealthy or not beneficial, such as genetic predisposition for diseases, or diseases that could not be cured; the second were the majority of healthy humanity; the third were a small but significant minority who possessed mutations and traits the regime found beneficial. Anthrarchos III declared all who would willingly sacrifice themselves would be given an ultimate reward in paradise and would be given the gift of eternal return reincarnation, just like Epiphanes himself, in return for the willing surrender of their life; it is unknown whether Anthrarchos III ever actually meant or believed that, or rather simply used it as a tool to motivate the populace. As a result, millions came from the world over to sacrifice themselves and be buried upon Olympus in a short but brutal voluntary holocaust. Entire bloodlines back to the oldest generational family member were wiped out virtually overnight in an attempt to cleanse the human gene pool. Those deemed to be homo sapiens were largely left undisturbed. ~60% of humanity were bearers of this label. The Scions As for the homo primus approximately 1.3% of humanity was selected to be intensely studied and have their genomes mapped. Anthrarchos III quietly announced to his regime his full intent to consciously develop and evolve humankind to it's next step. He sent out agents all across the world from Heliopolis to investigate those individuals deemed homo primus ''and find the finest specimens among them. Approximately a hundred thousand of these individuals were brought back from across the world. Over ten standard years or so, the regime poured all of it's available resources into studying them as much as possible. This initial pool of people was whittled down to 3,000 youthful individuals; the other 97,000 were allowed to return to their homes laden with gifts and treasures from the regime. From their research, Anthrarchos III created a new genetic template - which included elements from his own genetic type as well - for a new type of human being: ''homo ultimus. On the day of the 316th anniversary - in Spring SY 512 - of the Annunciation of Epiphanes, Scribonius records the blessing of Anthrarchos III upon them: "You are the finest of humanity, o people of whom I have given life and body and breath unto. Within your souls and flesh are the finest of the finest. You are spirit of my spirit, flesh of my flesh. Where the rest of humanity are my children, I bequeath unto you that you are my brothers and sisters. You are my Scions. '' "''From you humanity shall be remade and born anew, and a new epoch never before seen shall come. Neither disease nor death nor sickness nor defeat shall ever grace you. With the finest technologies of humanity and blessings of the gods, we shall conquer all and shall defeat the final enemy: Death itself. The universe shall be in our grasp and we shall become it's gods." Such words, the histories record, were met with tremendous rejoicing. The Scions were absolute and hardline true believers in the cause, despite the fact that they were not yet even pubescent. The Reformation Anthrarchos III had become increasingly distrustful and paranoid of his own regime during this time. He saw the first seeds of intellectual distrust; that is, he believed many were not true believers in his doctrine and either paid lip service or tried to understand it as a non-literal philosophy. Therefore, in Winter SY 512, 'Anthrarchos III undertook a thorough and near-universal purge of his own regime, reducing the teeming bureaucracy to smoldering ashes. He curried public favor for this by having former regime ministers herded into the Arena and being forced to take part in massive games, much to the delight of the public, under the guise that such actions would destroy the unbelief from the planet and atone for the crimes that were the cause of the previous famines and disasters. The purge and it's associated games - known to Anthroperian history as the "Reformation" - were broadcast globally and the streets of Roma flooded with Anthroperian citizens in a wild frenzy to view the action. As a further appeasement to the masses, Anthrarchos allowed normal citizens to take part in the combat of the Arena even if they were not criminals, leading to the establishment of the tradition of the reigning champion of the arena being endowed with the title "Lord Regent Protector of the Faith, His People, and all of Sol System." The three thousand Scions were presented to the world by Anthrarchos III in the beginning of '''Spring SY 513 '''and the world was told that they were his own offspring, divine beings worthy of worship in their own right. This, of course, did not violate the Law given by Epiphanes, for divinity rested solely in Epiphanes and his reincarnations, and to invest that divinity in offspring is to simply make an extension of himself. Therefore, at the Equinox of '''SY 513, '''all three thousand Scions were presented in the Heliopolis and it was recorded that "''the streets flowed with the blood of sacrifices, the smell of incense, the pour of wine, and the stench of smoke ascending from Mount Olympus, upon whom the bones of unworthy humanity stood in silent praise and testament to these new gods, the offspring of Man Himself which would lead us into an immortal and eternal but as yet unknown destiny." The Growing of the Scions By this time, Anthrarchos III was only 48 standard years of age, having taken power at the age of fourteen. He took great interest in the full application of the technology discovered by the researchers of the regime that he had just thoroughly purged. It seemed that Anthrarchos III truly believed that through a combination of technology and religion, he could achieve true immortality and break the cycle of reincarnation. The Scions themselves were used as the test subjects of a various combination of transhuman technology developed over the centuries of Anthroperian rule: * The heart, pancreas, and lungs were replaced with advanced technological alternatives. * The Soporian Implant, allowing the Scion to transcend the need for both sleep and dreaming entirely. * Endecrine Implant: fine tunes the adrenaline-hormone system and directly hardwiring it to the conscious parts of the brain, allowing the Scion to regulate their own hormonal balances at-will * Ocular Implant: combined with organic eyes to give a range of vision capable of perceiving light well outside of the normal visible spectrum. * Aural Implants: can hear anything from the quietest known sounds to the highest pitched noises. * Network Interface: implanted directly into the brain and connected to a great broadcasting device at Heliopolis that gave the Scion direct and immediate recall access to the full breadth of human knowledge known to the Anthroperium. * Interior calculator: brain implant that computed mathematical equations nearly as quickly as they could be thought. * Bone augmentation: the interior skeleton was laced with a combination of titanium and artificial diamond, making a Scion's bones nearly indestructible. * Iron Stomach: augmentive digestive system that allows essentially any material to be broken down for it's basic caloric value. * Internal Keys: radio-frequency technology installed in the hands that allow at-will control of basically any common Anthroperian technology. * Psychic Implant: while not truly psychic, the brain implant allows for a sort-of hive mind to be created between each of the Scions and Anthrarchos III. This allows Anthrarchos III to make his will known to them at essentially any given moment, as well as allowing the Scions to communicate with each other through simple thoughts and emotions. * Immortality Implant: Final piece of technology to be installed. Controls and shuts down the ability of cells to age, making the Scion appear the same age despite growing older through time. With the old regime thoroughly wiped out and purged and virtually all power both practical, political, and religious invested in Anthrarchos III, he organized his Scions into twelve groups of 250 each and gave each title and responsibility based upon the zodiac as viewed from Earth: * The '''Aryans: rulers of the Anthroperium. Placed in positions of power over the regions of the world to enforce the Law and each directive of Anthrarchos III. They were iron fisted but benevolent pragmatic leadaers. * The Taurans: masters, creators, and patrons of art. In reality, the propaganda machine of the regime. Produced works in all media designed to influence and shape the thoughts of the masses. * The Gemenids: science and research. Responsible for the engineering and creation of homo ultima. * The Cancerians: the priesthood and new official cultus. Constructed many new cathedrals worldwide for the worship of Anthrarchos III. * The Lions: warriors and peacekeepers. Each Lion trained and kept their own private militia under their sole direction, whom in turn reported directly to Anthrarchos III. Served as the enforcing arm of the Aryans world wide. * The Maidens: the only all-female group of Scions. They were used by the Gemenids to bear children through artificial insemination. Lived exclusively within the great complex of Heliopolis. * The Scales: enforcers of justice. They hunted disobedient and "sinful" individuals across the Earth and were some of the most feared individuals in the entire Anthroperium. They brought people back to the Arena to "face justice". * The Scorpions: the secret police of the regime. They walk amongst the populace disguised as commoners on the various orders of Anthrarchos III, to agitate or to introduce ideas. Pragmatically, they were used to stir existing dissent to eliminate the "weakest" portions of humanity before they were allowed to flourish into rebellion or dissent and to keep a regular supply of both willing and unwilling participants in the Arena. * The Centaurs: keepers of knowledge and wisdom. About half of them at any given time could be found in either Roma or Heliopolis, while the other half publicly taught the populace across the world in universities and schools. * The Capricorns: the most mysterious of the Scions. They were almost always in the company of Anthrarchos III himself and were the personal assistants in his various private works. * The Aquarians: the first Anthroperians to go to space in centuries. Maintained and traveled to and from the various ancient space stations still orbiting the planet, and acted also as peaceful ambassadors between the terrestrial planets, Luna, and Mars. * The Pisceans: captains and commanders of great ships that ensured prosperous and regular trade and distribution of goods across the Anthroperium. The Transformation of Anthrarchos III The process of the creation of the Scions and their subsequent organization and indoctrination into their various groupings took approximately seven years, completed in SY 521. That year, the Scions toured the Anthroperium and were hysterically and fearfully worshiped by the masses of humanity. With his god-like progeny complete, Anthrarchos III set about securing his own immortality. The Capricorns labored for nine days deep within the secure vaults of Heliopolis' palace, the process a strange and arcane mixture of rational science and deep, extreme religious superstition steeped in the ancient Anthroperian tradition. In the end, Anthrarchos had his flesh reduced to little more than a brain, his facial features, and the most basics of each of the human body's vital systems. In addition to all of the Scion's bodily modifications, his external form was constructed to perfectly resemble that of an ancient Greek god, so that he became like unto a living, walking statue. Additionally, his own version of the Internal Keys allowed him to call down his space-based weapons - the divine, wrathful fury of the gods that allowed Epiphanes to conquer Earth in the first place - simply at will. His stature increased to three meters, and he was permanently encased in a massive and ornate set of crafted armor that he rarely took off afterwards. A New Focus With Anthrarchos III's ultimate plan completed and the day to day affairs of the Anthroperium left soundly in the hands of the Scions, he shifted his focus in a new direction: metaphysical technology. Unlike his predecessors, Anthrarchos III had little to no interest in continuing the conquest of the Anthroperium to reunite Sol System. Rather, he believed that non-Anthroperian humans were simply inferior and would die out a natural death according to the natural order of the universe. The Anthroperium settled into a practiced and determined rhythm. Generations came and went living the normal human lifespan of less than a hundred twenty years, while Anthrarchos III and his Scions did not seem to age a day. Steadily, the most perfected form of the human genetic template was used to artificially inseminate the Maidens. Birthed in only ninety days, a thousand homo ultima were birthed within the first year with a 99% success rate. Only one in every thousand were found defective, and even then, such defects were not truly defective; only it did not match the sheer, god-like perfection of Anthrarchos III's vision. As homo ultima was introduced into the general population of Earth, they were viewed as something of demigods among men, superhuman beings born of divine mothers with no true father. Humanity in the Anthroperium became deeply stratified into three different classes: "normal" humans, the new generation and breed of superhumans, and their supposedly divine rulers. Over time, normal humans became little more than slaves used for labor and to continue to feed the fear-and-wonder machine of the great Arena, while the Ultimate Men and Women lived off of their toil. Deep in the vaults of Heliopolis, with none but the Capricorns for company and service, Anthrarchos III attempted to build a piece of technology only wished upon by his predecessors: a transport into the Unseen. It was a great secret kept hidden from the masses of humanity, even from the ranks of Ultimate Man: the last surviving scraps of ancient writ from ancient times long before the rise of the Anthroperium spoke of another universe, a universe correspondent to that of matter yet could not be perceived with the normal senses. The texts called it the Empyrean, or Unseen, Verse. Anthrarchos III devoured legend and scientific research alike, treating it all with the same reverence and seriousness as he labored and toiled away in attempt to construct a device that would, for all intensive purposes, bring this heaven to earth. Anthrarchos III simply disappeared into Heliopolis, not to be seen by the public eye for entire generations. The Purification Quest Centuries passed in this way until in SY 769, members of the Cancerians brought news to Anthrarchos III. Surely they themselves had never doubted their immortal and divine god-king, nor did any of the Scions. Yet the Arena was filling up with more unbelievers virtually by day, and quintuple the amount of petty criminals. It seemed that without the public presence of their god-king, the iron will of the Anthroperium was slowly rusting. The very thought infuriated Anthrarchos: he labored day and night with neither sleep nor rest of any sort in search of this magnificent breakthrough for the glory of all humanity, and yet his own people were betraying him in very mind and deed. Anthrarchos III was nearly three hundred years old, yet never felt stronger than in this moment. He called all of The Scorpions to himself and shared with them the news brought by the Cancerians. He announced the final step in the glorious perfection of humanity, after which there would no longer be any unbelief. The Scions rejoiced. Anthrarchos III instructed the Scorpions to spread lies among the populace, and say that Anthrarchos III had died and never really was a god; otherwise, if he was alive, why had he not been seen in generations? Logic went, Anthrarchos III said, that those who truly believed would refuse the Scorpions words, while those who embraced them never really believed in the first place; in this way, humanity would be polarized, the last dregs of cancerous unbelief would be surgically removed, and the Anthroperium would have achieved true, pure perfection. The Scorpions did as they were told. In a month's short time, civil war had broken out on the streets of many cities world wide as the disease of "atheism" reared it's ugly head and rebelled against the dominion of the god-men. They were fought by the true believers, the true worshipers of Epiphanes; these and these alone could be called truly human, and the rest were merely disease unworthy of life, no different than the homo indignus ''purged from humanity's gene pool so long ago. Anthrarchos had commanded all of the Scions to hold fast, neither participating in the glorious fight nor giving an inch to those who would attack them. In addition, he ordered the Arena temporarily suspended, so that there seemed to be not even the threat of punishment for disbelief. In the second month of '''SY 769', Anthrarchos III left Heliopolis at the head of an army of Ultimate Men, Lions, Scales, and Scorpions. News of the God-Man's reappearance spread like wildfire across the Anthroperium and he took to the airwaves and instructed his Aryans to enslave and detain all those who dared disbelieve, leaving the criteria for discovery of disbelief at their discretion. For the next year, each day slowly passed in a reign of orgiastic terror as the divine, superhuman army marched across the planet. Everywhere they went, they were met with the worship of hysterical crowds: saviors come to destroy the heretics and blasphemers among them! True believers welcomed them as the final salvation of the human race, an apparent apocalypse par excellance while a very few who had taken to disbelief laid themselves at the feet of their wrathful God-King to embrace whatever fate awaited them in the hopes that they might earn some penance. The majority who embraced disbelief at the instigation of the Scorpions stuck to it, believing that the man that now marched against them was an impostor, and to destroy that impostor would allow the natural reincarnation of the "true Anthrarchos". Three of the most unbelieving cities were chosen for total destruction and the events broadcast across the whole Anthroperium and all Sol System: Londaenyium, Aelia Palestinia, and Varynassi. Each of these cities' population was enslaved wholesale - including those who fervently insisted they were true believers - and the cities themselves decimated with the "divine wrath" of Anthrarchos III powers, leaving nothing but radioactive glass in place of sand and piles of rubble where once stood mighty and ancient buildings. It was like a great orgasm: the whole of the Anthroperium paused and held it's breath at the display of such terrible wrath, and then exploded in a frenzied and wild display of worship. Countless livestock, bottles of wine, and whole fields of crops were sacrificed in the sanctuaries world wide as simple human, Ultimate Man, and Scion alike chanted unthinking adulation to their immortal God-King. A little over seven million people had become enslaved as a result of their disbelief. They were officially declared subhuman, stripped of all of their rights and privileges, and put in the charge of the Scales. The mighty Arena of Roma which had stood silent and still for nearly a year overflowed with Anthroperian citizens ready to rejoice in the death of humanity's traitors. A New Era On the first day of SY 770, Anthrarchos III appeared in the Arena and announced that his great and perfect plan had now been fulfilled: all of the undesirable, unclean elements of mankind were rooted out and now, in eternal thanks to the true masses of humanity for loyalty to their god and sole ruler, they would enjoy a never-ending supply of bloodshed in the Arena. The Traitors, as they were now simply being called, were forced to reproduce even while they awaited their ultimate fate in the Arena; Anthrarchos III promised that both they themselves and a thousand generations of their descendants would suffer an undying punishment for their disbelief. With each Traitor killed in the Arena, the great mass of humanity became more and more desensitized and the violence became more intense. Traitors were merely targets and play things with no real chance of victory; therefore a quick and easy path to fame for many loyal Anthroperian citizens became competition in the Arena, and perhaps one day to become the Lord Protector, second only to Anthrarchos III himself. Anthrarchos alternated between long periods deep in the research labs of Heliopolis and regular public appearances at the Arena to be worshiped and gazed upon by all humanity. He had by now become the oldest living human known and such a fact endowed him with a certain sense of certainty in his own immortality and the inevitability of victory. After decades of research in, Anthrarchos III was no closer to achieving his goal of accessing the Empyrean Verse than he was when he first began. Devoted to utmost secrecy, he refused the idea of expanding his research to others across the planet; what if unbelievers from outside of the Anthroperium sabotaged the project, or seized it for themselves? However, in SY 801, Anthrarchos III discovered a tantalizing lead in the ancient research papers of the Consortium: there was a centuries old device buried deep kilometers underground in Europa. The device was used to recreate the earliest conditions of the material universe. Perhaps, he thought, if this device could be restored to working order, it would provide more insight. The records called it CERN. The Beginning of the End Anthrarchos III and his hyperloyal Capricorns left Heliopolis and, using the ancient and tentative records, rediscovered the ancient entrances to the gigantic complex. They had long since been sealed off by the now-fallen Consortium, but it was only a matter of months before they gained access. The local Anthroperian citizens who lived in such areas had for generations believed them to be entrances to ancient temples, and rumors quickly spread that Anthrarchos III was undertaking a mysterious quest truly fit only for a god. Yet the machine proved too much even for such a supposed God-Man. The collected brilliant minds of divine humanity, together with all their research - that is, at least, that which was not destroyed in the Cultural Purge of Epiphanes centuries before - could not uncover it's secrets. It seemed more magic and sorcery than science. Continually frustrated by lack of progress, the God-Man who now was pushing 350 years of age alternated between long periods roaming the deep, silent halls of the particle accelerator alone and returning to the Arena in Roma to unleash his rage upon the Traitors much to the wild pleasure of the never-ending crowd of spectators. In SY 832, Anthrarchos III had a sort of revelation while brooding over his research at the Arena. He knew that the great machine was supposed to recreate the beginnings of this universe; but it was only a physical machine, and could only do so on the physical level. To make such an effort complete, one had to work the machine in concert with a metaphysical appeal to the beginnings of the unseen universe. To do both together would result in the answer that Anthrarchos III so desperately sought. And so he called together the most learned of his priests and consulted every bit of scripture all the way from the very first words uttered by Epiphanes. All things stemmed from the two primal elements of Chaos and Concord, taught their one and only true religion. But even those things had a source, and were not eternally existent; if those two things were to be united, what would result? Naturally, the priests agreed, nothing in the most literal sense. They would wholly cancel each other out, resulting in a true balance. Eureka struck Anthrarchos III: he must run the cycle of creation in reverse, with only a true god being worthy of such a feat. For days the ironfisted single dictator of humanity brooded on this revelation: the gods themselves that gave birth and rise to his own existence were the things blocking his access to the Unseen, to ultimate and unlimited power. He decided that the gods were greedy, wanting to keep such power for themselves. The answer was clear: humanity must slay the gods, until only he remained, and then he must surrender this physical form that had sustained him for more than three centuries. Not, however, to be reborn yet again as Anthrarchos IV. No, that was but a step. This was the next great step in human progression: he would lead all of the human race to victory over the principalities themselves that had given rise to them, like children overthrowing their parents in great celestial revolution. Anthrarchos III determined: it was not necessary to destroy the lesser beings. He himself, after all, already ruled Gaia and could command Hermes to bring him knowledge on whatsoever he so desired. Helios and Luna were only themselves offspring. To succeed in this antithetical crusade, the original offspring of Chaos and Concord must be destroyed. Venus, Jupiter, and then finally the very fabric of the material universe itself must be ripped asunder. Venus, being the nearest to Earth, would come first. Jupiter would be next, though they might meet resistance from non-Anthroperians. Then, the ancient machine CERN could perhaps be used to focus enough energy in a single point of spacetime to rip it apart. Then, with their corpses in hand, the primal elements themselves could be commanded. Or so the God-man hoped. Anthrarchos embraced it as his ultimate destiny, the purpose for which he existed. It was not the purpose for which he was created; to rule man was as second nature to him as it was to breathe air. No, this was his purpose, the one he created for himself, for he was the third incarnation of ANTHRARCHOS HYPERVINCIJOVUS EPIPHANES. In quiet meditation, Anthrarchos III laughed to himself as his "own" name suddenly smacked himself in the face: Hypervincijovus. The Ultimate Conqueror of Jupiter. And yet Jupiter stood defiantly occupied by a rebellious sect of humanity that would not acknowledge him as their sole ruler and god. He meditated upon the great pantheon of his descent and realized that Jove, that Jupiter, was the unifying thread of the first generation. If Jupiter was to be conquered and then destroyed, there would be no separation between the physical universe and Venus. Chaos and Concord were balanced in Jove; Venus and Mestia would therefore be drawn to each other due to the attraction of opposites and cancel each other out ... creating that perfect, metaphysical nothingness that he needed. He only needed to time it correctly with the operation of the ancient machine. Thus, his primary research became how to destroy an entire planet and the spirit with it. It was time to once more prepare for war. But such things must be done in secret, lest he be discovered. But even as he determined to live up to such a name, his Cancerians once more brought infuriating news to their lord: a new object had been detected in the skies. For centuries the Anthroperium's cultus had carefully watched the skies; each point of light, while having a physical existence, was, after all, a divine being. There was a regular order to it all; the skies were ruled by Concord, while Chaos gave rise to the Beauty that drove the human race to look skyward. Using the magnificent and ancient telescopes of Heliopolis, the Cancerians showed their Lord the blip of light moving on a slow but accelerating and due course directly towards Sol System. Anthrarchos III felt an itch in his gut and consulted the ancient records. He found where centuries earlier Epiphanes himself had learned of the Progress fleet. Comparing what he saw with the ancient records showed a remarkable similarity; only the object they now saw in their skies was far smaller than what the records spoke of. Anthrarchos III grew uneasy: either the records were wrong or something had changed in the intervening centuries. But he knew he had time. At the rate the object was traveling - whatever it was - it would take centuries to reach Sol System. And by then, he could be prepared on a wholly different level. Much fatigued from decades of research, Anthrarchos III allowed himself to entertain his populace and ease his mind. He commands his own Capricorns to maintain a permanent and vigilant watch on the object, noting it's every action and movement. None others could be trusted to do so. All the while, the object grew bright enough in the sky even for the unlearned and average human to notice. Rumors spread like wildfire across the planet, but they all carried generally the same tone: a new god had appeared in the heavens, but whether for ill or good they knew not. With the memories of the Purification Quest still fresh in the collective human mind, sacrifices increased tenfold and constant prayers ascended out of the world's cathedrals, asking their God-King for an answer, and growing increasingly more impatient. From Heliopolis, Anthrarchos III brooded and thought and knew that mere Arena games would not be enough to distract the populace. This was a problem that must be met head on. The solution that came to Anthrarchos III was one purely his own. It was half hopeful thinking, half a determination to make this so. With great fanfare, Anthrarchos III announced to his great human empire that they had no reason to fear and every reason to rejoice. Having achieved perfection - reminding them, of course, of the Purification Quest - the gods themselves were coming down to their world to pay tribute to and worship Anthrarchos III their great Lord, and this was no mere minor god: this was the very manifestation of Chaos and Concord itself. With a frenzy, the Anthroperium received the revelation of their immortal Lord. Anthrarchos III explained further that he must attend to his matters in Heliopolis in order to make ready this monumental event. Directly after the announcement, ten thousand Traitors were executed in the Arena in a single day and the streets of Roma ran freely with crimson blood for days, staining it's white tile in magnificent praise to their only Lord and King, Anthrarchos III. The Dominion Arrives In SY 855, the mysterious object disappeared from the sky momentarily only to reappear quite near Pluto, and Anthrarchos III realized with a cold chill that their new visitors possessed some kind of technology that they did not. To disappear and reappear at will: that was what he had sought for decades! Access to the Empyrean! He had tempted the gods and challenged them to battle, and the gods responded. This would be the moment of truth. This would be everything and nothing. Ancient spacecraft from the days of the Consortium, poorly understood yet operational nonetheless, had been kept in deep mothballed storage for just such a purpose. Centuries and generations had gone by without a spacecraft being seen taking off from Earth. And Anthrarchos III knew the psychological effect of such things could be strong. So without a warning, in months he readied the ancient craft and, laden with Aquarian crew, launched from Kalamata - the very same spaceport that centuries earlier had played party to those who burned the Heliopolis in the Solar War. The Anthroperian crew left a few of their own in orbit upon ancient space stations, the very same responsible for raining down divine wrath upon any who dared to oppose Epiphanes' conquest five and a half centuries earlier. The Dominion is met by Anthroperian craft at Mars and they get their first real look at the so-called "gods", sending images back to Antharchos III: a long and slender rotating cylinder, with engines on one end and a small pod on the other. Records showed that it matched modules that would have been part of the Progress fleet learned of by Epiphanes. The Dominion is escorted to Earth orbit and docked with one of the stations. It's crew is warmly welcomed, though they can sense the underlying uneasiness and distrust - hostility, even - of those they encounter. They are told they will be brought before the great god of all creation, and that is why they are there. Meanwhile, Anthrarchos III announces to the Anthroperium the arrival of the long-awaited gods. They would land at Sriharikota, and should be properly welcomed. Accordingly, Joshua and the rest of the Dominion crew - escorted and closely observed by their official Anthroperian handlers - deorbit and land at Sriharikota to a teeming crowd of hundreds of thousands. They are taken aback by such a welcome, but are assured that it is the will of Anthrarchos III. They are, after all, divine beings, and should be welcomed as such, they are told; the El'yon companion - who remains quite invisible to the Anthroperians - of the crew advises Joshua to keep up such a ruse, even though they did not themselves create it, for it could be potentially useful if things become hostile. They travel across Scythia and into Hellas, where at Heliopolis they are given the grand tour of the capitol and taught the history of the Anthroperium through the legendary poetry of Scribonius Epiphanes. Joshua, together with the history he learned on board the Dominion, realizes that things are not all as they seem. The Arena At Roma, they are shown the mighty Arena and are told that is where Anthrarchos III awaits them. Guided by Pontificus, they are told that it was through war and conquest that Epiphanes and his successive reincarnations made themselves gods, and if they were divine beings as Anthrarchos III said, they too would show their divinity to all humanity through such conquest and war. Within the arena, Anthrarchos III in all of his glory presents himself from his regal opera-box. Rather than he, it is the audience which demands prostration of the new-come divine beings to the lord of humanity. The Watcher invisibly advises Joshua and the others to do so. To their surprise, as they bow, Anthrarchos III commands his people to prostrate now to them, and without question they do so. All a part of Anthrarchos III's ultimate plan. As Joshua introduces his companions, neither affirming nor denying his own divinity, all things change when Svennesohn Gwaltney - completely unknown to everyone except for The Watcher until now - enters the Arena and introduces himself as one of Joshua's companions. Gracchus Verus challenges Joshua to a fight to the death in the Arena, perhaps truly believing that by slaying a so-called god, he himself will be worthy of being one. Anthrarchos III allows his, and explains the terms: it is to the death, and if Joshua wins, he takes Verus' place. Joshua declines the use of a weapon, insisting that his words alone will be his weapons. The Watcher invisibly aids Joshua as the two move in perfect harmony and concert with one another. To the simple naked eye, it seems as if Joshua can control things at will and is a truly savage bare-fisted warrior. In a matter of moments, Verus is defeated, but his life is spared despite the chants of "Death! Death! Death!" from the crowd. This act of mercy disgusts Anthrarchos. Looking down at Verus, Sven says, "Have you ever slain a god before?" to which Verus says nothing, and then looks up at Joshua and smiles. Joshua tells Sven, "I am no god..." to which Sven simply and warmly smiles, and says, "I know." Before either man can say anything further, Anthrarchos III hushes the crowd and demands battle of the entire group against he alone, to which the crowd goes wild with anticipation and approval, chanting praises towards their god-man. He insists that the group choose weapons, and Sven simply replies, "My words are my weapons." As Anthrarchos III leaps down from the opera box, the quadruple screens hanging from the center of the Arena begin to play the Yuri Gagarian footage precisely on cue. Enraged, Anthrarchos called down kinetic weapons from high orbit and begins to decimate the Arena itself. With the unseen assistance of The Watcher, Joshua deatomizes the so-called God-Man in a single stroke. High pandemonium ensues, and the group escapes guided by the Watcher. Collapse of the Anthroperium That day in the Arena in SY 861.3 marked the beginning of the downfall of the Anthroperium. Sven, in disguise, escapes to Scythia which becomes the first province to embrace the heresy of unbelief - as if the Scythians had ever truly believed. With their centuries-old dictator suddenly gone, the open rebellion of Scythia goes unchallenged. Even the most ardently faithful have their belief shaken, for they cannot deny what their eyes have seen. Other provinces begin to rebel, and the society of Earth splits. The only ones remaining truly loyal to the regime are the Scions, who mobilize to swiftly restore order to Earth. Within days, the so-called Traitors rise up en masse in organized rebellion, encouraged by Sven who has become something of an underground resistance leader. From Scythia, Sven prints as many copies of Breath and the Yuri Gagarin footage as he possibly can, as well as the recording of the slaying of Anthrarchos by Joshua. Encouraged by the rebellion of the Traitors, the slave continents of the Americas rise up in open rebellion and begin to self-declare their own autonomy and form independent nations. Unable to control the entire Earth due to their small size, the Scions retreat to Heliopolis. In Roma, power is seized by Gracchus Verus and he demands loyalty under penalty of death. Joshua and his crew escape to Sardinia. There, they liberated one of the last remaining functional rockets on Earth and are witnessed by all ascending to the sky, shaking the faith of all Earth: for they witnessed them come from the sky, defy and slay their god-king, and ascend once more to the sky. They successfully make it to their Dominion fleet. Before they can escape orbit, however, the Scions launch space weapons controlled from Heliopolis at them, utterly decimating the station and Dominion ''fleet alike. Reorganization Sven had made sure to capture footage of the "battle of the gods in the sky" and distributed that, too, across the Earth. Humanity is divided into two competing claims to authority in the power vaccuum: one, led by the Scions claim that Anthrarchos would return shortly in an exalted, never-before-seen form, and used the memory of the Purification Quest as a terrifying warning for what might happen to those who oppose the regime. The other was a newly found unity of friends: Gracchus Verus, the tribal leadership of Scythia, the underground resistance network of Sven, and the leaders of the slave revolts in Europa and the Americas respectively. The five powers mutually recognized one another against the failing Anthroperium. The cry went out across all the Earth: "''Remember the Dominion!" and the phrase became a unifying battle cry to all who would hear it. Worldwide, the temples of Anthrarchos were burned by angry citizens who either simply engaged in wanton blasphemy or had embraced the infant religion now being spread about by Sven through the undergound. Meanwhile, Mars regained it's desperately-longed for liberty, supported by a huge influx of spacers from both the Rim and the Main Belt as news quickly spread through the SolarNet that the centuries old repressive Earth government was suddenly collapsing. Sven was counseled by the Watcher to be patient, trust in the Architect, and simply continue what he was doing, and it would all make sense. Sven was confused and bitter that the man he had waited for years to meet he had only encountered for a few brief moments, and then he had to watch him die. When pressed for answers, The Watcher would give none, but finally relented out of mercy in seeing Sven's suffering: "What does Theodecian say about numbers? Look for the eighth day." In Breath, Sven learns that the number eight means "new beginnings". And while he does not understand, he begins preaching as a slogan "Look for the eighth day." It was a month after the "Arena Revolt", now SY 861.4. 'On the eighth day after the destruction of the ''Dominion fleet, Joshua and all the rest of them appeared alive as ascended beings in Scythia to Sven's disbelief. They relate everything that had happened to them from their perspective since the destruction of the Dominion. Throughout the rest of '''SY 861, news of Joshua and the Dominion crew having conquered and defied death while Anthrarchos III remained simply dead spread like wildfire across the Earth. They helped to provide much needed leadership and stability, and extended official recognition of authority to Gracchus Verus on the conditions that he listens to their advisory, to which he happily agrees. Verus secures alliance with the major leaders of the slave revolts and lay siege to Heliopolis. While Joshua is unhappy with the violence, he understands that it is, for now, necessary. With the fall of Heliopolis, most of the Scions fight to the death, while a minority are captured alive. The Vaults of Rome are opened - the existence of which was completely unknown to all but Joshua and The Watcher - and the information printed and distributed en masse around the Earth. In a highly symbolic gesture, the Scions are tried for war crimes in the Arena in the first free trial the Earth has seen in centuries, the method of which they learn from information in the Vaults. The last of the Scions are justly sentenced to death. Religion Epiphanes derived his religion from Terran Humanism and taught a popular religion whose deities are directly identifiable with the stars. Chaos and Concord were the two primal elements from whence all things sprang. From the union of Chaos and Concord came Venus (beauty), Jove (Jupiter), and Mestia (all of matter, energy, space, and time). Venus and Jove united to create the sun and moon, Helios and Luna. Helios and Luna gave birth to Gaia, the Earth. Mestia created Hermes, the messenger of the gods, who united with Gaia to create Anthroperus Rex, or man. Mankind, thus, has a single soul which is reflected in many pieces through the many teeming billions of humans. The pinnacle of human perfection exists in Anthrachos Hypervincijovus Epiphanes, who's successors maintain the perfection he revealed. The whole soul of humanity rests in Epiphanes and his reincarnated successors, and it is the duty of all mankind to obey and strive for the example of Epiphanes. To do so is the only destiny of the human race; to not do so is to risk destruction of the entire race itself.Category:Second Trilogy Category:Characters